Marc's Public Blog - Cars

After buying my '95 Miata, I had to take it on Skyline
The picts are here

A couple of weekends later, I went to Skyline again with a couple of friends and this time we drove down HWY 9 to Santa Cruz.
The picts are here

That day, I didn't drive as my Miata was having its failing transmission replaced with an RX7 one, but it's probably just as well because the drive got a bit crazy, and one of the drivers lost it in a turn while the front pack was going way too fast in a 1.5 lane road, downhill with blind turn after blind turn...
Luckily no one was hurt. The only disturbing part is when someone mentionned "damn, he spun out in the same turn than the other guy last time".
The picts are here

While this event was very enlightening and useful to learn how to control your car better, it was also a complete blast.
Thanks a lot to all the people who put it together and all the instructors who volunteered their time.
The picts are here

I had promised myself that I wouldn't go to a drive like this before getting my rollbar (better be safe than sorry).
Now that I had it, it was time to give the drive a shot. Dr Wong gave a quick introduction and filled in for the speaker, who wasn't able to show up that day, and gave everyone a warning about not driving over their capabilities.
The drive went fine, and as a bonus, we saw a huge convoy of bikers heading north on HWY 1 (more than 500 of them)
The picts are here

As my first NASA HPDE event, and my first time at Sears Point, it was interesting, but we ended up only getting half the track due to construction, and they had way too many people so it was not exactly the best event ever, but at least I got to watch other people in smaller groups run
The picts are here

It was just too much fun last year for me not to go again. This year, I had my rollbar, and really went for it. It was perfect preparation for the upcoming days at Thunderhill that I signed up for.
Again, thanks a lot to all the people who put this even together and all the instructors who volunteered their time.
You can find all the pictures I took (170+) here (note that you can switch the picture size to original to see the full sized pictures).
You can also find the TH Miata Performance Driving School web pages here

This was a scheduled Delta Miata Event, which got cancelled, but due to miscommunication, the BAMA members didn't get the cancellation notice, so since we had showed up at the meeting point, the 3 of us ended up doing the drive since we had gotten up and driven there. it was great and well paced.
We got a slightly longer than planned stop at the rest point as a bicycle rider broke his hip, and had to be evacuated by helicopter, and the funny part is that after leaving from the observatory about 15mn after a police officer, we ended up catching up with him right before the bottom. Ooops

The pictures are here

The Sacramento Area Miata Owners Association had their first track event at thunderhill. Lots of miatas, it was a great event.
The weird part is the plane that flew over the track, broke a wing, and crashed meters from turn 6-7. Unfortunately both occupants died, even though the TH ambulance was there in less than 5mn.
The event resumed an hour after that and went well.

Many thanks to Raphael, my friend who tagged along for the event and took great pictures of me. Incidently, the first time he rode with me, I spun in 11, and the second time, I went right past the tower in 5 (didn't manage to brake enough and was not going to make the turn). Figures...

The many picts are here

It was a very well organized event, with probably the strictest rules I've seen so far .

That said, 2:30 hours of track time in 5 sessions for $180 was a great deal.
I was initially in group B, but after passing 8 NSXs having no one catch up with me, I suggested that I probably wasn't in the right group (not that I'm that good, mind you, but people in group B probably were going easier on their cars, which considering their price, makes sense)
Group A was much better, and while I was sometimes hard to catch in the turns, I was quick to wave people by in the straights (includes 7-8 & 9-10). Some NSXes with sticky tires were also quite impressive in turns.

It felt like were actually happy that I was there, it gave them a different car to compete^H^H^H^H^H^Hcompare against. A miata is no NSX, but a few were still impressed by what the car could do when pushed a bit.
My S-03s are just amazing, I've been ripping through turns. I'm now going in 1 with about 85mph (I don't quite have the guts to do more yet), I can exit 2 at 75mph, rev-limiting my 3rd gear, and it seems that I can do turn 8 flat out (which in my stock miata is apparently 87mph, but I'll take that as good enough )

The cool thing is that on my very last run around (just before the checkered flag), I felt that I was going to spin in 14. I don't think I went in that differently than other times, but anyway, I somehow actually managed to countersteer and catch the spin before it happened.
I'm not sure I could reliably reproduce this on demand quite yet, but this was way cool. Woohoo!

End result: my front break pads were toast, and so were my 7K S-03s (incidently, the Wheelworks guy I just saw told me I was past the sticky part on my S-03s, and that I would have had to expect more upcoming spins had I kept them on)

The few picts I took are here